Eating for Health

I’ve been a vegetarian for over a dozen years now and for some time before that I only ate chicken and fish. My family thought – and still thinks – that it’s “weird” and “unhealthy” to be a vegetarian. They often make comments about what I eat (or don’t eat) and tell me it’s impossible for me to be healthy as a vegetarian.

Actually, however, I have fibromyalgia, so the situation for me is different than it is for my nay-saying relatives. The fibro was extremely bad during my undergraduate years. Doctors put me on so many medications that I felt spacey and drugged out for much of the time. There are months that I can scarcely remember.

Then one doctor suggested I try cutting meat out completely. I’d long considered vegetarianism for ethical reasons, but it was simply too difficult in my family, because of a strict father who would not have permitted me to eat something different for dinner than he ate. But then I had permission – even encouragement – from a doctor. My father was not going to argue with a doctor.

Okay, the doctor also suggested I cut out bread. I tried that but it was hard to give up, so that didn’t last.

The vegetarianism did last, though. I found that I definitely had less muscle pain with a vegetarian diet. I was able to do the ethical thing and also take care of my health. I went off all medications (except the occasional over-the-counter pain-reliever), I slept better (still not brilliantly, I must admit), and the pain was nowhere near as bad.

I still had to deal with complaints and derision from my family (who sometimes take pleasure in taunting me by showing me the big steaks they are eating and/or making animal noises while they chow down on lamb chops or pork roasts), but I moved away from my hometown and was able to take complete control over my diet.

Mentally and physically, vegetarianism has been very healthy for me indeed.

My Cousin Chad’s Pasta

When I was last in my hometown, one of my two lovely cousins cooked a couple of vegetarian dishes. Let me point out that no one else in my family is a vegetarian and that my cousin is just 21. I think that will emphasise to you just how kind it was that he went to all the effort for me.

One night while everyone else was dispersed, Chad made me pesto pasta. It was so nice to sit with him and chat and eat food that he’d cooked especially for me. I immediately requested the recipe for the blog. And if you need any work done on websites, do use Chad’s excellent services.

Thanks for being such a great cousin, Chad!

Ingredients:
1 box of farfalle pasta (about 450 g)
water
1 clove garlic
1 tsp butter
1 jar traditional pesto (about 180 g)
1 jar sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil (about 240 g)
parmesan, to taste
crushed red pepper flakes, to taste

Instructions:
1. Boil the pasta in the water. This will take about 12 minutes. Strain the pasta, then put it back in the sauce pan.
2. Mince the garlic and add it, the butter, and the pesto to the pasta. Chop the tomatoes and add them.
3. Season with parmesan and red pepper flakes to taste. Stir everything together.

Protection

In some families, including mine, there’s this idea that if you’re gay, there are certain members of the family who can’t handle that fact. And so you are supposed to lie or at least omit facts and not worry people. In my case, this has to do with older and more conservative relatives.

So when M and I went on holiday recently, all I told some relatives was that I was going away with a friend. I don’t like lying and I don’t like downplaying M’s importance in my life. It all feels wrong. She’s my partner and she’s the woman I hope to be with for the rest of my days. Why should I be expected to hide that? I hate when my grandmother asks me if I’m dating anyone or if there’s anyone special in my life and I have to say no even though the truth is that there is someone very special in my life.

I guess some people worry that older relatives, such as grandparents, won’t get it and might find the news shocking. So we’re supposed to protect them. But I wonder who we’re really protecting. Are we protecting ourselves, because we don’t know how to broach the subject? Are we protecting our parents, because they don’t want our grandparents to think that they (i.e. our parents) didn’t know how to raise children and therefore ended up with gay ones? Are we genuinely protecting our grandparents because they’d find the thought of gay grandchildren so disturbing that they might disown us or even have heart attacks due to the shock? Is it some combination of all of these?

I suspect we’re doing ourselves a disservice but not being honest. We’re not allowing our grandparents (or whoever) to know who we really are or to be part of our lives. We’re missing out on a potentially stronger relationship with those who we are supposedly protecting. We’re denying them a chance to get to know our partners too.

If our parents’ generation thinks we shouldn’t tell our grandparents’ generation, then I for one will agree with what they think best. I’m not convinced by it, but maybe I’m following their advice because I want to protect myself and my relatives. Protection isn’t always the best thing, however.

Vegetarians Who Eat Fish

I see a lot of people who say they are “vegetarians who eat fish” or are “pescatarians”. Eating and/or preparing fish is something I myself struggle with, as I live with a carnivore. I don’t think it’s right for me to inflict my own views on someone else, so I sometimes cook fish (though I wouldn’t cook meat, and of course that makes me wonder why that is my particular limit, and what makes fish okay (once in awhile) but meat not). Most of my friends eat meat, too, and some are picky eaters who are hard to satisfy or who have many objections to various food items. Since I love to cook and M and I occasionally entertain, that means I make food dishes at times.

I know some couples where the vegetarian half even cooks meat for the carnivorous one, but I confess that even the idea of having meat in the house, much less in my pots and pans, disturbs me. But then I know others where the carnivorous member/s of the family only eat meat when out at restaurants.

When M and I were away for the weekend, she had the full English breakfast, sausage and bacon included, each morning, while I had my vegetarian version (hoping my food hadn’t been made in the same pan) and tried not to feel too queasy at the thought of what was on her plate. But she “humoured” me by going to vegetarian restaurants with me and she usually eats my vegetarian food at home. Also, of course, she isn’t a vegetarian and I knew that when we got together, so I felt I had no right to say anything or feel sickened. Maybe I’m just oversensitive.

How do others deal with this? Will you cook fish and/or meat for friends or for omnivorous partners/relatives? How do you feel about them eating meat in front of you?

Vegetarianism at the Holidays

Ah, holidays. Time for family, friends, overeating, and, um, stress. At least that’s what I find, and apparently a lot of other people feel the same way.

One cause of stress can be if you are the only vegetarian at the holiday meal (or if you are one of just a few vegetarians). Now, some hosts are accommodating and will happily make a meat-free dish or two. But some hosts find this very difficult and/or upsetting. So if I’m invited somewhere, I usually offer to bring a dish that I can eat. That eases some strain on people who can’t possibly imagine what a vegetarian might eat (even though those same people make plenty of vegetable-based dishes, of course; it’s just that they consider them to be side dishes, not main courses).

One things that’s often overlooked, as people are quick to complain about vegetarians’ “strange” eating habits or “demanding” needs, is that for vegetarians, it can be difficult to look at the table laden with animal products and to watch people, sometimes even people they love, shove dead animals parts in between their teeth. Most of us manage not to show our disgust or to give lectures, but it can be hard at times.

Holidays can be hard in and of themselves – we’ve all experienced the alcoholic relative or the arguing couple or the burnt meal – but we should all try to show a bit more sensitivity. If you’re the vegetarian guest, bring your own dish and don’t lecture people about health and morality. If you’re the host of a vegetarian, make sure you have enough vegetable-based or tofu-based dishes, and have a generous cheese tray, and also remember that your vegetarian guest might be struggling too.

It’s the holidays. If we can’t be cheerful, at least we can be kind. Right?

Noodle Kugel

Just a day after the latkes, M got another Jewish dish to try. This time it was noodle kugel.

Kugel is an odd mixture of a dish. It has noodles, so it seems like a heavy main course. And yet it’s often quite sweet and could be more like a dessert. I served it as our main course, but it also works as a side dish. You can cut the sweetness a bit by serving it with vegetables. Of course there are variations on kugel, so you can replace the noodles with apples or carrots if you want.

I remember my maternal grandma making noodle kugel quite regularly. She always made me one when I came back to visit from university and even today she often makes me one when I come to visit. I appreciate that she goes to so much trouble for me, even as she’s in her late 80s.

M can’t know how my grandma’s kugel tastes, but hopefully she got a glimpse of Ashkenazi Jewish home cooking the night I made the noodle kugel.

Ingredients:
butter to grease the casserole dish
½ cup crème fraiche or sour cream
1 cup cottage cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp apricot jam
2 eggs
200 g egg noodles
1 cup corn flakes
more sugar and cinnamon

Instructions:
1. Grease the dish. Mix the crème fraiche or sour cream, cottage cheese, vanilla, sugar, cinnamon, and jam together.
2. Beat the eggs and add them to the rest of the mixture. Mix all this well with the noodles, coating them.
3. Put the mixture in the dish and bake for 15 minutes at 180 C. Meanwhile, crush the corn flakes and mix them with more sugar and cinnamon.
4. Stir the noodles and then sprinkle with the corn flakes. Bake for another 20 or so minutes, checking and stirring as necessary.

Potato Latkes

Hanukkah is almost over and I was determined to make M some typical Jewish food while the holiday was going on. I’m an atheist Jew, which means I don’t believe in a god or any of the other accoutrements that usually accompany religion, but I do have a Jewish family and grew up with Jewish culture around me. That includes Jewish food.

M isn’t Jewish and never had Jewish food before, so I thought it would be fun to cook it for her. But I also was a bit worried. Even though M is always sweet and never criticises me, I had flashbacks to a previous partner, whose Christian family made fun of the Jewish dishes I cooked for them. They claimed to be interested in Jewish things, because of course their friend Jesus was a Jew, but then they mocked anything that was different from what they were used to, and they seemed to view Judaism as an outmoded set of beliefs that was simply there to make way for Christianity. Again, M is nothing like this, but somehow I was worried that she wouldn’t like the food anyway.

But Hanukkah seemed like a good time to force myself to face my stupid and ill-founded fears. I’d gotten 8 little gifts for M and they were piled up in the corner of the living room, poorly wrapped (I’m an awful wrapper!), and it was snowy and icy outside. So potato pancakes seemed like just the thing.

Potato pancakes – called latkes by us Jews – are quite easy to make. The only important thing to remember is that potatoes can be pretty watery, so once you’ve grated the potatoes, press them and strain out as much liquid as you can. That way the latkes will be much crisper. If you don’t want your Hanukkah food soaked in oil, despite the fact that it’s an oil-based holiday, use kitchen towel to pat the fried latkes dry.

Serve with sugar, crème fraiche or sour cream, and apple sauce, and open a few presents while you’re at it. Next thing you know, you’ll be singing “dreidel, dreidel, dreidel” too.

As for M, she liked the latkes. I was relieved. Now I just had to find something else to worry about, which meant wondering if she liked all the silly and sappy gifts I’d gotten her (heart-patterned socks, anyone?). Time for another latke!

Ingredients:
4-5 potatoes (I used blue ones for variation, but any firm sort will do)
1 onion
3 eggs
3 tbsp flour or matzoh meal
1 tsp salt
oil
sugar, crème fraiche or sour cream, and apple sauce to serve with them

Instructions:
1. Shred or grate the potatoes and try to press as much liquid out of them as you can.
2. Grate the onion and add it to the potatoes.
3. Beat the eggs and add them to the potatoes, then mix in the flour and salt. Blend well. Meanwhile, heat the oil over low heat.
4. Fry heaping tablespoonfuls of the potato mixture until crispy on both sides.
5. Serve with sugar, crème fraiche or sour cream, and apple sauce.

Progress

I was Skyping with some relatives recently. They asked what I’d been up to over the weekend. I shrugged and said not much, mainly due to the inclement weather This was in itself true. However, I let them think that I’d been up to not much all on my own.

That is to say, I didn’t mention M.

My relatives were probably feeling sorry for me. They must have thought, “Poor thing. Working all the time and now stuck at home all alone because of the weather, too. She needs a life.”

I have a small family. Some of them know about M and some don’t. Those who don’t know are people who are conservative or who wouldn’t get it or accept it. And of those who do know, most don’t really mention it or ask about her. None of them have met her.

I felt very sad after this conversation. I couldn’t say to my family via Skype, “Yes, I was stuck at home. But it was fine. I was with my beloved, and she makes everything better.” Instead, I just had to let them think I was lonely, and alone, when actually I’m neither.

Some years ago, I couldn’t have walked down the street, holding M’s hand. I couldn’t have introduced her to colleagues and friends as my partner. Clearly, lots of progress has been made. But it hasn’t been enough. One day, I’d love to Skype with my family and to have M sitting next to me, chatting with them. Maybe this will be the case, some day.